This invention relates to a casting wheel for a continuous casting machine, particularly for casting aluminum strips.
A casting wheel, for example as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,583,474, consists generally of two spaced-apart facing flanges, of which at least one is rotated by the drive means for the casting machine, a casting ring supported by said flanges and having a peripheral groove, and a metal belt which covers the casting ring over a certain arc in order to define therewith a mold in which the molten metal is cast. The metal is gradually cooled during rotation of the wheel, and leaves it substantially solidified in the form of a continuous bar.
One of the problems in this field is to adapt the machine to casting bars, ingots or strips of different section. This is particularly so in the case of strips, i.e. continuous bars with one of the transverse dimensions much greater than the other transverse dimension, and which are subsequently rolled into sheets. Aluminum strip is one example of this.
Generally the casting ring has to be replaced each time in order to cast strips of different width, so leading to a considerable time wastage and loss of production. To do this, the casting wheel has to be stopped each time, one of the support flanges has to be dismantled, the ring has to be removed to replace it with the required ring, and the flange then reassembled to recommence production. To this cost disadvantage, there is added the need to stock a large number of different sized rings to satisfy any specific production requirements, so further increasing both maintenance and production costs.